


Pride

by kakikaeru



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Confident Katsuki Yuuri, Life Coach and LGBTQ+ Mentor Katuski Yuuri, M/M, Yuri Plisetsky figures out life and love, coming out support systems, let the yu(u)ris be friends 2k20, you've got a friend in me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27794527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakikaeru/pseuds/kakikaeru
Summary: "This was a terrible idea," Yuri hisses, and Yuuri reaches over and touches his wrist. Yuuri is not a tactile person and Yuri will maul anyone who tries to touch him, but a month ago Yuuri found him sobbing in the space between the vending machines at the rink, and it was hard to go back once someone had held you through the brink of your despair.Yuri deals with the mortifying ordeal of being known.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 53
Kudos: 229





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karuston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karuston/gifts).



Yuuri scrunches his nose a little, and Yuri wants to _die_.

"I guess… I guess it feels…" he says, looking at the ceiling, out the window, anywhere but at Yuri, his hands gesturing vaguely, and Yuri resists the urge to shout something abrupt and profane, to curb his embarrassment in the quickest and safest way possible.

"Look, if it's difficult–"

"No, no!" Yuuri says quickly, waving his hands and smiling in that squished up way that makes him look like the characters they put on Korean stationary. "No, I'm just… trying to think of a good way to explain it? Sorry."

"It's – fuck! Don't apologize," he mutters, covering his face with his hand. It feels like his skin is burning. It feels like he is currently living in a confusing pit of fire and brimstone, and he's not sure if his insides are squiggly because everything is so new and awkward or if it's just his lingering, irrepressible, irresponsible crush.

"This was a terrible idea," Yuri hisses, and Yuuri reaches over and touches his wrist. Yuuri is not a tactile person and Yuri will maul anyone who tries to touch him, but a month ago Yuuri found him sobbing in the space between the vending machines at the rink, and it was hard to go back once someone had held you through the brink of your despair.

"We don't have to do this, Yurio," Yuuri says gently. "We can just keep playing Fortnite if you want, but Victor will probably make us switch to MarioKart when he gets home."

"Could I just ask something else?"

"Sure, of course."

"How do I keep people from knowing?"

Yuuri frowns. "Do you want them to not know?"

"It's nobody's fucking business!"

"Right. That's right, yes. It's your choice." Yuuri thinks for a minute, his lips moving from side to side as he weighs whatever he is going to say carefully. Yuuri says everything carefully, that's why Yuri came to him, and not Victor.

"I didn't… you know, I never _told_ people," Yuuri says at last. "I mean, apart from my family. So I guess that's one way."

Yuri blinks at him. He _knew_ this was bad idea; Yuuri is the most oblivious person on the face of the earth. He has no idea of his influence or draw; Yuuri came home from his vacation with Victor in Menorca with a bracelet of grass braided through brightly coloured beads around his wrist, and Marc Jacobs put them on all his runway models. Yuuri was photographed in the checkout at Global Gourmet wearing an oversized mint green hoodie over his dance leggings, and not only did it become the It Colour for spring, the brand of cup noodles he was buying sold out internationally. Yuri has a defined style and a killer look, and every month he opens his ironic subscription to GQ to find out that Yuuri has once again unknowingly inspired the latest trend, _without even goddamned trying_.

"Katsudon," he says angrily, "If you don't know that you're the most famous homosexual in the world, I don't know how to help you."

"I'm not," Yuuri says sharply, his eyes hard. "Yurio, I'm sorry but we talked about that."

Yuri flushes immediately. He can be pretty tactless and he doesn't usually care, but this ought to be something he can at least get right. "Sorry," he mutters.

"It's okay. Just, it's important to recognize people for what they say they are. It… when someone tells you… sometimes it takes a lot of bravery, you know? I didn't really experience that, but my experience is not universal."

It certainly took a lot of bravery for Yuri, who took five tries to tell Yuuri even when he knew Yuuri was safe, and wouldn't judge him. He has _only_ told Yuuri, and by extension, Victor, who he gave Yuuri permission to tell because he knew Katsudon would frantically take the secret to the grave if he didn't, and Victor would be stupidly dramatic about it if Yuri told him in person and that would _suck_. So Victor knows, but he hasn't done or said anything about it, hasn't tried to talk to Yuri about it or congratulate him or welcome him to the club or whatever it is they do. Instead he has been entirely respectful of not bringing it up, content to wait for Yuri to broach the subject first, in a way Yuri isn't sure he understands, but also sort of gets. Yuri was too young to know all the details when it happened, but he does know that Victor was outed very publicly and not by choice, and this is what Yuri fears the most happening to him.

"How did you decide? Guys, I mean. Like, how do you pick?"

Yuuri smiles, his head tilting a little to one side. It's fucking adorable and Yuri hates him.

"Why did I pick Victor?"

"You could date anyone, so…"

"I'm _attracted_ to everyone, Yurio," Yuuri laughs. "I _love_ Victor."

"Gross!"

Yuuri smiles and sets his controller down on the coffee table. "I don't get you Yurio, Victor is one of People's Fifty Most Beautiful–"

Yuri grabs a pillow and beans Yuuri repeatedly with it. "He. Is. Not. My TYPE!!!"

"Okay, okay." Yuuri easily divests him of the pillow, because he is both bigger and stronger, and tucks it behind his back while he fixes his glasses. "He's my type, so it's fine."

Yuuri does not ask him to clarify his type, though it's probably pretty obvious once you stack up the evidence – Yuri got drunk and kissed Phichit, which he now knows in retrospect that Phichit had _not_ been into but really kind about, and his crisis of faith between the hum of the soda machines had been spurred by a shirtless photo of Otabek in the locker room in Almaty, posted by a rink mate on instagram, that made Yuri suddenly, frantically aware that he might want to date his best friend. Yuri likes his men dark, fit, and with an epicanthal fold, apparently. Seung Gil should probably watch out.

"I just want you to know Yurio, that it's okay if you don't want to tell everybody? It can be scary, and really, the most important thing is that you feel safe. It's a personal choice; it feels great when you can be yourself and don't have to hide, but also… I get it."

Yuri is not going to cry. God, he has gone through probably all the boxes of tissue in the Katsuki-Nikiforov apartment in the last month. "Thank you," he says tightly, and roots around the couch cushions for his own controller to avoid looking at Yuuri, which will break the tentative dam he is forcibly holding over his tear ducts.

"And I'll answer any of your questions as best I can, if you still want me to."

Yuri sighs. He is so embarrassed, but he also just wants to know, without having to run the risk of Lilia finding his search history. He fiddles with the laces dangling from his sweatshirt and goes back to his earlier question.

"So, then, what does it feel like?"

"It feels really good." Yuri can hear the smile in Yuuri's voice. "Not everyone likes it though, which is fine, everyone's different."

"But it's… I mean, is it –" Yuri shakes his head and tries to start over. "Like, right in your…"

"Yurio."

Yuri looks up, and Yuuri is not making an angry face, nor does he look like Yuri's squeamishness is pathetic or immature, or that Yuri is wasting his time. He looks endlessly patient in his typically Yuuri way.

"Have you ever tried it on yourself?"

"What! No!"

"Maybe start with that."

"Ugh… Yuuri…"

"Use a lot of lube. Do you have lube? Wait, I'll get you some!"

"NO!" Yuri grabs him by the t-shirt to keep him on the sofa. "I live with YAKOV!"

Yuuri blinks. "So? Try it in the shower. I'll give you our decoy shampoo bottle."

"WHAT?"

Yuuri smirks at him, and he gets up – not to go to the bathroom or the bedroom or the spare bedroom and god, what has this couch seen – but to Victor's incredibly stupid and expensive coat rack, which looks like a farm chair with aspirations. Yuuri digs around his coat pockets and returns with a small, one inch-square tub of vaseline, innocently proclaiming itself lip balm.

"Here. Lilia will see it on your nightstand and just think you have chapped lips."

Yuri stares at it, burning into his palm like a hot coal. "I don't want your lip gloss," he mutters lamely, and Yuuri laughs, climbing back on the couch.

"It's not lip gloss, and I have dozens of those, they used to hand them out all the time in college."

"Why is it in your coat?"

Yuuri stares at him. Just, really looks at him, open and waiting, and Yuri endures the supreme embarrassment of watching one of Yuuri's perfectly arched eyebrows slowly rise over the frame of his glasses.

_Oh my god._

"Do you... in public? With _Victor_?!"

"I think," Yuuri says levelly, although the corners of his lips are curling, like he's holding in a laugh, "that we should keep the specifics of what I do out of this discussion."

"That is so–" it's the hottest thing Yuri has ever heard, even with Victor there to ruin it. "– that's disgusting–"

"It's not disgusting."

Yuuri does look a little angry now. There's a line in his forehead, and he has that same tight-lipped look on his face that he gets when he falls too many times in a row during practice. His breath comes out in a little huff, and he looks away, at the kitchen and then out the window, and when he looks at Yuri again his face is smooth and composed.

"Yurio, what we are, is not – why do you keep saying it's gross?"

"I..." _Shit_. "I didn't mean–"

"You're obviously curious. And that's fine, I don't mind talking about this, but not if you're going to use those kinds of words."

"Fuck, fine–"

"Maybe it's difficult to understand right now, because the way you feel is new to you. But caring about a person... wanting to be with a person, loving a person, being physically intimate with a person you like, it's never disgusting." He reaches across the couch and dabs at Yuri's chin with his sleeve, where tears are starting to collect. "You are not disgusting."

"Victor's pretty disgusting," Yuri sobs, and Yuuri slides along the couch, gathers him up into the type of cuddle Yuri would viciously deny he has been dying for Yuuri to give him for most of his adolescent life.

"I hate to tell you this," Yuuri murmurs, rubbing his back, "but Victor is not really that into you."

Yuri's laugh is a fragile thing, hiccupped out through his teeth. He sniffs into Yuuri's shoulder. "You two are the only... not straight people I know."

"I don't think that's true. But I do understand if you think I am less obviously flamboyant than Victor. Even if I do wear more glitter than he does."

Yuuri looks so much better in glitter, so much better in most things – he is twenty-six years old, and somehow manages to make a cat-earred beanie look elegant and purposeful. He's slender and agelessly beautiful; Victor's broader frame and strong jaw could never pull off half the things Yuuri wears both by choice and in the editorials he is photographed in. Yuri has no idea how Katsudon manages it, off ice he dresses like a mannequin from the Gap, but his ability to wear a red-lined half-skirt and have it fly completely under the radar is a skill. Victor wears bespoke three-piece suits, sharply tailored knee-length coats and wing-tip brogues, and he still reads less masculine than Yuuri does standing next to him in a backless costume where the top is comprised solely of illusion netting and strategically placed sequins.

"How do you do that… people just see you, not… you know…"

Yuuri sighs. "That's not something any of us really has any control over," he admits. "But I think it's because apart from skating and being married to a man, I don't really live up to what people's idea of a bisexual person is. People think men attracted to men all have lisps and weak wrists and want to plan dream weddings. And that's not true at all. We are just as diverse as heterosexual people, but for some reason that's hard for people to understand."

"You did plan a dream wedding, though," Yuri points out, because the cherry-blossom adorned, highly traditional Shinto ceremony in the onsen had definitely not been Victor's idea. Their sakazuiki set are proudly displayed on a shelf of their bookcase, next to a photo of their first kiss as a married couple. Kyushu ratified civil unions for same-sex couples specifically so Yuuri and Victor could get married in Hasetsu, and now it’s the number one destination spot for gay marriages.

"Of course I did," Yuuri snorts. "I was planning my marriage when I was twelve. I was ready." He pats Yuri on the shoulder and draws away a to pull a tissue from the box on the coffee table and hand it to him. "But nobody besides Yuu-chan knew that."

Yuri blows his nose and tucks the soiled tissue into the pocket of his hoodie to throw away later. His grandpa didn't raise him to leave messes on people's coffee tables.

"The point though, Yurio, is that you're still you." Yuuri's smile is annoyingly fond. "It's not like you come out and suddenly your personality has been replaced by Ru Paul's Drag Race. Feeling the way you do is just one part of who you are."

It wouldn't be so bad to be a little like Ru Paul's Drag Race – Yuri fucking loves that show. His favorite episode just so happens to be the one from the season after the PyeongChang Olympics, when Yuuri and Victor appeared as guest judges. It started out pretty annoying, with Victor swanning around like an airhead and Yuuri trailing indulgently after him, blushing whenever someone flirted with him. But as soon as it came time to actually judge the girls on their sultry dance routines, Yuuri had eviscerated those queens. He'd made three of them cry.

"And, what helps me the most is confidence," Yuuri continues, his smile a little wry. "This is the one part of myself that I always understand. Better than anyone else, so no one can tell me about how I'm supposed to feel."

"I don't…" Yuri plucks another tissue from the box like it's personally offended him. "I don't know how I feel."

Yuuri hums empathetically, and politely looks away while Yuri swipes under his eyes with his tissue. Once it's tucked into his hoodie pocket, Yuuri reaches out again, long fingers encircling Yuri's wrist.

"You don't have to figure it out all at once," he promises. "It's like… getting on the ice. It feels really unsteady, and like you'll fall. And maybe you will? But if you learn to trust yourself, you can make something beautiful."

"Katsudon!" Yuri shakes of Yuuri's light grip with a wail and dives for the tissue box. "What the _fuck_?"

"Too much?"

"Why are you so shitty?" Yuri groans into his tissue. "Fuck."

"You've got all of us here, to help you while you learn, okay?" Yuuri goes back to rubbing Yuri's back. "Do you have any other questions?"

Yuri has so many other questions, but there is now a small, discrete tub of lubricant burning a hole in his sweatshirt, and he's afraid of what else Yuuri might pull from his coat pockets.

"Should I tell Otabek?" he whispers.

"If you want to," Yuuri agrees, "and you feel ready, then I think you should."

"But what if… I don't know how he'll react."

A small smile curves the corner of Yuuri's lip. "Well, considering he was fully prepared to give Phichit a shovel talk at Worlds, I don't think you need to worry about anything negative."

Yuri blinks. "Beka did what?"

"Phichit thought it was very cute," Yuuri laughs. "He used to do that to my partners too."

"What."

"Mm, you should ask Victor about the time Phichit made him cry."

Yuri can't help it, a devious, wide smile cracks across his face. "Katsudon," he grins.

"I know." He picks up his controller from the coffee table. "Fortnite?"

Yuri picks up his own controller from where he's abandoned it on the couch. He likes playing with Yuuri, who is fast, stealthy, and viscerally mean to grandstanders online. They work well together; they've even won a few rounds, although given the time they were playing at, Yuri suspects it was against mostly little kids in America.

"Yeah," he sniffs, and clears his throat. "Thanks, Katsudon."

Yuuri nods once. "Anytime."

**Author's Note:**

> A different kind of ice adolescence!
> 
> I wrote this for Pride this year, but was too shy to post it. But just like Victor, aged 17, skating out onto the ice at the Grand Palais in what I highly suspect is a dress with pants thrown on underneath, there's a first time for all things - nothing beautiful can happen without some hard work, some dedicated love, and a little bit of bravery.
> 
> I hope you're all well, wherever you are! At the time of posting there was still an hour of Yuuri's birthday left where I live, and one hour until mine took over. From one anxious-Sagittarius to another, happy Birthday to the character that constantly reminds me to get up, keep going, and to accept that others believe in me more than I do - and that's more than enough.


End file.
